CRM Working with the Application
CRM – Working with the Application
Objectives
The objectives are:
Explain how customer records are used in Microsoft Dynamics® CRM
Record addresses
Use notes and attachments
Describe the purpose of connection records
Use activity records to track customer interactions
Personalize Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Introduction
This training introduces the core records used in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and explains how they are interrelated.
You can create records that describe people and companies and their contact information. Attachments and notes can be added to these records as well. Then, create and describe the connections among these records. For example, you might create a connection between records for two contacts, and then assign the role Colleague to the connection.
Activities can be attached to records as well. This is essential to keeping track of interactions with customers, and how or whether those interactions require more action.
This training also shows how to change personal settings in Microsoft Dynamics CRM application.
Customer Records
Accounts
Perform the following steps to create a new account:
1.Navigate to Accounts in any of the functional areas (Workplace, Sales, Marketing, or Service).
2.Click New.
3.In the Account: New window complete the fields on the form as required. The only mandatory field is Account Name.
4.Click SaveandClose.Customer Records
Sub-accounts
A sub-account is an organization that is part of a larger group. Sub-accounts can be used for organizations of any size. For example, a sub-account can be used to record the local office of a larger company or the details of a corporation that is owned by a holding company.
It is recommended that sub-accounts are used to track sales and service to parts of an organization that are separate legal entities or have their own purchasing authorities.
An alternative way to track multiple office locations for an organization is to have one account record and multiple address records (discussed later in this training).
The appropriate method will depend on the requirements of each business but it is important that a standardized approach to storing organization information is used so that users know how to enter and find the relevant information.
Perform the following steps to add a sub-account to an existing account:
1.Navigate to Accounts in any of the functional areas (Workplace, Sales, Marketing, or Service).
2.Open the account that will be the parent account.
3.In the Common section of the Related Items navigation pane, click Sub-Accounts.
4.In the Records group, click AddNew Account.
5.Complete the fields on the form as required. The only mandatory field is Account Name.
6.Note that the Parent Account field has been automatically populated.
7.Click Save and Close.
Customer Records
Parent Customer
Contacts can be linked to other account or contact records using the Parent Customer field. Often, a contact will be linked to a parent account to indicate that the contact works for a particular organization.
A contact can only have one parent account or contact. If you need to link a contact to several organizations then consider using connections (discussed later).
If a contact has a parent account or contact, any opportunities, quotes, orders, or invoices related to the contact will, by default, automatically appear in the parent record as well.
Customer Records
Primary Contact
On account records, use the Primary Contact lookup field to identify a key contact at the organization.
By default, the Look Up record window for Primary Contact only shows contacts that are linked to the organization record. However, any contact, including contacts that are not linked to the organization, can be used as the Primary Contact.
To choose from all contacts, clear the Filter by related Parent Customer checkbox.
Customer Records
Contacts
To add a new contact that is not linked to another record:
1.Navigate to Contacts in any of the functional areas (Workplace, Sales, Marketing, or Service).
2.In the Records group, click New.
3.In the Contact: New window, complete the fields on the form as required. The only mandatory field is Last Name.
To add a new contact to an existing account:
1.Open the existing account.
2.In the Common section in the Related Items navigation pane, click Contacts.
3.In the Records group, click Add New Contact.
4.In the Contact: New window, complete the fields on the form as required. The only mandatory field is Last Name.
5.Note that the Parent Customer and other fields have been copied from the parent account record.
6.Click Save and Close.
Addresses
Identifying Addresses
Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes the following two fields in an address:
Address Name
Address Type
Address Name
The Address Name field is not part of an actual address; instead it is used to identify an address, for example, Head Office, Warehouse, or Field Office. It also helps distinguish an address from others for the same record.
Although the use of Address Name is not mandatory, adding a name allows the address to be copied to the bill to and ship to addresses on quotes, orders, and invoices using Look Up Address without having to retype the address.
Address Type
The Address Type field is a drop-down list used to classify the purpose of an address. The following are the default values:
Bill To
Ship To
Primary
Other
The use of Address Type is not mandatory and is not needed to use Look Up Address on sales records.
Notes and Attachments
Most record types in Microsoft Dynamics CRM can have notes attached. A note adds to a record additional text-based information that doesn't fit into any of the other fields on a record.
Although notes can be used to record interactions, such as meetings and phone calls, it is recommended that activity records (described later) are used to do this.
To add a note to a record, complete the following steps:
1.Open the record.
2.Click the Add tab.
3.In the Include group, click Add Note.
4.Complete the Note: New form.
5.Click Save and Close in the Note: New form.
The following steps describe an alternative way to add a note:
1.Open the record.
2.Under Information, click the Notes & Activities tab.
3.In the Notes section of the form, click Add a new note.
4.Enter the note in the section immediately under Add a new note.
5.Press TAB.
Connections
Connection Roles
You can optionally describe the relationship between records by specifying roles.
There are several ways in which connection roles can be used in a connection:
Apply the same role to the source record and to the target record. Examples of roles that could be applied to both records in the connection are friend, team member, or colleague.
Apply a role to the source record or to the target record, but not to both. A salesperson role in a contact to opportunity connection is an example of such a role. The records, such as opportunity, invoice, or sales order, usually contain sufficient information about what they represent and do not require a role assigned to them.
Apply two matching roles (sometimes referred to as reciprocal roles). One role applies to a source record and the other role applies to a target record. Examples of matching roles include:
Doctor and patient
Parent and child
Employer and employee
Microsoft Dynamics CRM includes several predefined connection roles but further connection roles can be added.
Connection Role Categories
Connection roles can be categorized. In a default installation, the following categories are available:
Business
Family
Social
Sales
Other
The list of connection role categories can be customized.
Activities are used to track customer interactions, such as sending e-mails or letters or making appointments or telephone calls.
Users can create activities for themselves or they can assign them to another user to complete. An activity has attributes (such as start date and time, due date, and duration) that indicate when the action occurred or is due to occur. Activities also have properties that determine what the action was about, for example, subject and description.
Most activities also record participants. For example, for a telephone call, the participants are the person making the call and the person receiving the call. For a meeting, the participants are the people attending the meeting.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides several types of activities as shown in the following list:
Task
Phone call
Letter
Fax
Appointment
Recurring appointment
Service activity
Campaign response
An administrator can add custom activity types.
Activities
Linking Activities to Records
Although most types of activities have participants, you can link an activity to another record using the Regarding field.
For example, a user arranges a meeting with a customer to discuss an opportunity. The user adds the customer as a participant to the meeting and links the meeting to the opportunity using the Regarding field.
NOTE: The Regarding field can only be used to link to one record.
Activities
Completing an Activity
Microsoft Dynamics CRM does not mark activities as completed automatically. A user must close an activity as completed or cancelled.
For example, to close a task, follow these steps:
1.Open the task.
2.To close the task as completed, click Mark Complete.
3.Or for additional options, in the Actions group, click Close Task.
a.In the Close Task window, select the appropriate status in the drop-down list.
b.Click OK.
When an activity has been closed, either as completed or cancelled, it becomes read-only and cannot be changed. The only possible action, for someone with the appropriate privileges, is to delete the activity.
E-mail activities do not need to be closed. Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically closes e-mails when they are sent or received.
Activities
Viewing Activities
Microsoft Dynamics CRM activity records appear in several places.
As a related item in the record of all participants under Activities or Closed Activities.
As a related item in the record of the regarding record under Activities or Closed Activities.
In Workplace | Activities.
For activities that are synchronized to Outlook®, as Outlook items (for example, tasks and appointments).
Activities in Workplace provide different views for each activity type. For example, for e-mails some of the views include:
My Draft E-mails
My Received E-mails
My Sent E-mails
For appointments some of the views include:
My Appointments
My Completed Appointments
Personal Options
In Microsoft Dynamics CRM users can configure how information is displayed and how the application behaves using Set Personal Options.
Users can set personal options in the Web client and Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook. Not all options are available in both clients.
To set personal options in the Web client:
1.Click the File tab.
2.In the list below File, click Options.
To set personal options in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook for Microsoft Office Outlook 2010:
1.Click the File tab.
2.In the list of items below File, click CRM.
3.In the pane to the right, click Options.
Settings in Set Personal Options are shown on several tabs.
Personal Options General
The following table shows the settings on the General tab:
Setting
Purpose
Select your home page (Web client only)
Sets the default functional area and record type for when the Web client opens.
Show Get Started panes on all lists
Controls whether the Get Started pane is shown.
Select which forms to use (CRM for Outlook only)
Controls whether to Outlook or Microsoft Dynamics CRM forms appear when a new CRM activity or contact is created. Applies to Appointments, Tasks, Contacts and E-mails.
Set the number of records shown per page in any list of records
Sets the number of records per page in lists. Available values are 25, 50, 75, 100, and 250.
Select the default mode in Advanced Find
Controls the start-up behavior of Advanced Find.
Set the time zone you are in
Controls how times are displayed. All dates and times are stored internally in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) but are displayed to users according to their time zone setting.
Select a default currency
Sets the default currency for records that have money fields and do not already have a currency set. The user can choose from currencies defined by the administrator.
Support high contrast settings
Supports high contrast in conjunction with color schemes set in the operating system.
View your user information
Provides a hyperlink that opens the user's record.
Personal Options
Synchronization
The Synchronization tab only shows in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook and does not appear in the Web client.
The following table shows the settings on the Synchronization tab:
Setting
Purpose
Synchronize Microsoft Dynamics CRM items with my default Outlook folders
Contains a link to Outlook filters which are used to control the data that is synchronized between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Outlook.
Update the company field for Outlook contacts
Copies parent company to Outlook copy of contact when this setting is checked for Microsoft Dynamics CRM contacts that are tracked in Outlook.
Set Synchronizing Client
Selects the computer which will act as the synchronizing client when Microsoft Dynamics CRM is installed on more than one computer. The synchronization between Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook and Microsoft Dynamics CRM can only run on one computer.
Schedule automatic synchronization with Outlook
Controls how frequently Microsoft Dynamics CRM items are synchronized with Outlook. The minimum interval is controlled by the administrator.
Personal Options
Workplace
On the Workplace tab, users can choose which areas are shown in the Workplace.
The areas that can be added are:
Sales
Marketing
Service
Scheduling (Web client only)Personal Options
Activities
The Activities tab only appears in the Web client and does not appear in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook.
The following table shows the settings on the Activities tab:
Setting
Purpose
Default Calendar
Sets the default view for the calendar. The options are Day, Week and Month.
Set your default work hours
Sets the start and end time for a user's working day.
Personal Options
Formats
The Formats tab provides settings that select how Microsoft Dynamics CRM displays number, currency, time, and data formats.
To change the format, select the appropriate language and country/region entry in the Current Format drop-down box. The Format Preview shows how items will be displayed.
To change how a specific item, such as the Short Date, is displayed click Customize.
In the Customize Regional Options window, number, currency, time and date formats can be configured separately. Any changes apply only to the logged-on user.
Personal Options
E-mail Templates
The E-mail Templates tab shows the personal e-mail templates for a user. New e-mail templates can be added and existing templates can be modified.
Personal Options
The E-mail tab shows options for which incoming e-mails are tracked in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and how outgoing e-mails are managed.
The options shown on the E-mail tab will vary depending on the following:
The users' e-mail access settings as configured by an administrator.
How an administrator has configured e-mail routing.
Whether the Set Personal Options is viewed in the Web client or Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook.
Personal Options
Address Book
The Address Book tab only appears in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook and does not appear in the Web client.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook adds address books to Outlook for the following record types:
Accounts
Contacts
Facility/Equipment
Leads
Queues
Users
The settings on the Address Book tab control which record types and which records (based on ownership) are synchronized to the Outlook address book.
Personal Options
Local Data
The Local Data tab only appears in Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook when offline access is configured. It does not appear in the Web client.
In Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook with offline access, a local database stores a subset of Microsoft Dynamics CRM data.
The following table shows the settings on the Local Data tab:
Setting
Purpose
Update local data every minutes
Controls how frequently the local database is updated (in minutes).
Enable duplicate detection during offline to online synchronization
Controls whether duplicate records are synchronized to Microsoft Dynamics CRM when going online.